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The NMC Symposium for the Future: Prepping for Virtual Keynote about Nonprofits and Social Media in 2020

The 2009 NMC Symposium for the Future, the fourteenth in the NMC’s Series of Virtual Symposia (October 27-29th), will explore actual and potential applications of technology that could impact issues of global importance over the next five years and beyond. My colleague, NMC's VP Alan Levine (aka Cogdog Blog) invited to give one of the keynotes in their 3D virtual space.

The 3D space where this virtual symposium will take place is a
private version of the Second Life platform that Linden Labs and NMC
have created, called the Hakone Project. I've
been having a lot of fun researching some metaphors for the future and
of course, I went straight to the Jetsons. In fact, I'll be arriving
in a Jetson like transportation and my avatar will probably look a
lot like Jane Jetson.

If you'd like to participate, I have 10 FREE PASSES to give away. So, leave a comment and you might one of the passes.

The Symposium grows from the NMC’s Emerging Technologies Initiative,
which seeks to answer the question of how to keep abreast of emerging
technologies that may be important for educators. I get the
question, "What's next after Twitter?" a lot, so it is really helpful
to have a peek the annual series of Horizon Reports that have also flowed out of NMC's Emerging Technologies initiative.

My marching orders were: pull out a crystal ball and gaze five, ten or even twenty years into the future to answer these questions:

What role will social media play in the future for the nonprofit, social change sector?

What do non-profits need to do to thrive?

Is this a shiny future or a dire future?

What will be different about nonprofits?

The fun part is figuring out how to effectively deliver a 3D presentation in a 3D space. Aside from the Jetson metaphors, I have to start to thinking about content. So this post, is my first pass at that and hopefully you'll suggest lots of ideas in the comments.

After watching almost all the Jetson's episodes on YouTube, I thought I better start to dig into the content.

The Symposium has several brief white papers about future techologies and education to jump start the discussion:

It's Easy To Fall in Love with Technology by Danah Boyd. This is a rant and warning against shiny object syndrome and a remember that technology does not drive practice. That technology, in and of itself, can solve the ills of the world. This made think about focusing less on the tools, but more on the implications for nonprofits. Some of the future has already arrived, so may be talk about those examples.

The Stars Our Destination by Gardner Campbell. This post is an inspirational message and reminder that stubborn visionary optimism drives accomplishments and that half measures and incremental steps just don’t seem to get us very far when it comes to education. For nonprofits taking their foray into social media, incremental steps are what is in order. But, how to make that big leap across a chasm that isn't scary.

Tactics and Haptics and A Future That Is Now by Holly Willis. This post describes several projects that represent the future of technology and education because they meld tools and needs. Described as situational technologies, they strike a balance between needs and possibilities and letting users determine uses and creative desire.

Last year, I heard Jerry Michalski use the metaphor of the global brain in talk about the future. He mentioned that we were halfway through a transition process where we are renegotiating social contracts and connecting with people in a way that we haven't before. Jerry talked one benefit of this connectedness and openness is innovation.

So, the folks at NMC who build objects on Hakone might be creating a
big, huge, global brain that when clicked will open up web links of
some of the best crowdsourcing on the future technologies and how they
will impact the nonprofit sector. I've identified some key resources or inspiration below (if
there are others let me know) where discussions about the future and
nonprofits are taking place.

For example, you can in a couple clicks go onto a site like Slideshare and see ideas on a topic from some of the best thinkers on that topic and recreate your own meaning of it. I had joked with Jerry that one downside is the inability to remember our calendar - and that with this socialness will our friends eventually collaborately remind us of our appointments. (It was funny at the time).

As part of this, we have to face the question of the degree of openness that a nonprofit organization will embrace. As Esther Dyson said during the summer at Transparency Camp West, that there was still in 2009 a place for private discussion. "We could all go around naked and look
like angels, but in the real world that doesn't happen." Transparency
has its benefits, but so does privacy. As Esther Dyson said, "There is
a need for respect - of relationships, to get trust, and further
understandings. You can't be fully transparent all the time because
you need to give people a safe place to have the discussion without
disrespecting others."

The point is that there are different
levels of transparency for nonprofits and it is knowing where that line
is and how transparency can make the organization more effective. I wonder if in 2020, whether nonprofit
boards/governance will be totally transparent?

But the point is that knowledge is now externalized in our global brain of connections with colleagues and other organizations. I think that this connectedness will thread together both individuals and make the boundaries of nonprofit organizations very porous - so that we'll have colonies of organizations working together on issues/causes versus isolated islands. This melting of boundaries will happen from inside out through individuals working in nonprofits using social networks to connect across silos and organizations.

This is already happening to some nonprofits as a by-product of their participation on social networks and using simplicity. Take for example, what David Venn had to say in this recent guest post about how the use of social networks has opened the door to new partnerships.

Will nonprofits in the future:

1. Identify the essential2. Network the rest

This is happening by design in some newer nonprofits. In a recent post by Scott Henderson offers up charity:water as an example. Ever since last year’s Twestival, the nonprofit charity:water and its founder, Scott Harrison have demonstrated the power of simplicity.

Harrison is building a non-profit capable of
breaking thru the cynicism his generation (he’s 34) has for large,
bureaucratic non-profits. To do so, he knew he had to take a different
approach that was more transparent, lean & hungry, and leveraged
its inherent strengths

Two things surprise most people who about
charity:water. First, charity:water didn’t conceive and run Twestival.
Second, charity:water doesn’t drill the wells themselves. The former
was led by volunteers and the latter is done by partner organizations
with decades of experience.

Wait a minute! Isn’t that scandalous? Actually, it’s quite smart.
Scott knows his team’s strength is in telling the story and making it
easy for others to raise the money.

Why only equip paid staff to raise money when you have a growing
army of champions? Or, why build up a large implementation team from
scratch when you can contract with organizations that have been around
20-30 years and are quite familiar with each country and culture they
help? Of course, they have professional fundraisers on staff. Of
course, they also send their operational staff into the field to work
with their partners and keep them accountable.

In case you were wondering, all of their marketing is done in house.
Scott and his team travel with digital still and video cameras
everywhere they go. Most of the stunning visuals are shot by Scott
himself (he says if anyone shoots 1,000 photos, at least one will be a
powerful image). At the controls of the charity:water marketing
dynamo is his new bride, who designs all their digital and print
collateral, including their website.

One of the benefits that connectedness offers us that we no longer a vertical monopoly on a program, cause, or fundraiswer. Not one organization needs to do all the heavy lifting. This is called working in a networked way.

The institution as we know it is dead. Collaboration between and within
organizations will be paramount to creating REAL change. -- @ntenhross

Yes,
the institution as we know it is dead. The illusion of institution
boundaries is crumbling - collaboration proves more useful. Remix. --
@NurtureGirl

Foundations leveraging unrestricted funds to
"challenge" people to engage in philanthropy (S.A. Comm. foundation
match days trending upward.) The role of movement-building in
philanthropy and the social sector as a whole. The closing doors of
non-profit organizations due, a.k.a. the final wave of impact from the
recession and the "new normal" that will emerge. -- @ChangeEvnglst

Movements,
for all kinds of issues & sectors - movements any organization can
join, and anyone can be a part of, and more sustained than campaigns.
-- @engagejoe

The big story will
(should) be the shift from serving causes to solving them. Audiences
won't stick with nonprofits that don't make progress on issues and
won't donate to groups that aren't having MAJOR impact. Note that MAJOR
impact is not to be confused with activities that get attention or
build lists. The whole way nonprofits operate will change in 2010. It
won't be viewed that way; people will say the economy is still
struggling, etc. But make no mistake, the shift will be in approach and
strategy. Non-profits must operate with a new mindset and focus, or
lose audience. -- @BrianReich"

There is another effort underway to look at what the nonprofit sector will be like in the year 2020. It is described here on the Case Foundation blog by Kari Dunn Saratovsky.

The Independent Sector is engaging individuals and organizations the spectrum in a dialogue to
address social isues and problems that nonprofit sector has been addressing for a
long time. The themes include the role of technology in social change, the
power of cross sector partnerships, and the importance of building
greater diversity that brings new voices to the field. The initiative is called FutureLab, an Online Challenge for the Nonprofit Community to Chart a Vibrant 2020
and is a national conversation to generate, develop, and share ideas to
dramatically increase the impact of nonprofits and foundations over the
next 10 years.

Behind the password, is a conversation taking place about many issues. I was most curious about those related to technology. They challenges are presented.

To date, we have failed to maximize the potential of technology as a
powerful force to effect transformational social change, to improve
people’s lives, and to mobilize our collective power. How can we assist
organizations in moving from using technology to increase internal
productivity to using it to fuel social change?

The transformative power of technology has been successfully leveraged
in the business community and has produced “game changing” models such
as eBay and Google. How can we support innovation, invention, and
adoption of transformative technology for the public good?

The barriers preventing the nonprofit community from
harnessing the power of technology include lack of understanding and
know-how, privacy concerns, institutional resistance, and real or
perceived start-up costs. How can we overcome these, and other,
barriers?

A few of the emerging solutions presented:

Create a technology boot camp for CEOs to gain a quick understanding of
how technology and social media can increase the effectiveness of their
organizations. Technically-literate leaders are more apt to invest in
human capital through technical assistance, certification, and on-going
training thus mobilizing our collective power and adding velocity to
social change.

We as humans like to use tools that are Easy, Fun and Mean something to
us personally....that give us a personal benefit. It explains
Facebook's success...all of us desire to publish (some of us less, some
of us more) personal facets of our lives. But the magic is that it is
easy....for everyone...it operates on all levels of bandwidth...and it
is FUN.

What's your take on the future of nonprofits and how social networks are causing disruptive and far ranging change?

Comments

Hi Beth,
While I could pretend that I'm only commenting because of your engaging post, I like to take the most honest route:
I am joining the nonprofit technology/social networking world and would love to attend the symposium. My goal is to help organizations and activists utilize technology to spread their message and raise support. I believe that communication technology can shorten the distance between donor and program, maximizing the impact of philanthropic giving. I follow your blog using Google Reader (as per your advise in a webinar I attended), and would love to see you fly in on a Jetson saucer.
Best,
Heidi

p.s. Charity:water is one of my favorite organizations, but I fear their shinning example is being mistakenly used to chastise other nonprofits for not being social media savvy (i.e. Seth Godin). As is aptly pointed out above, charity:water is a shinning example of efficient specialization within the nonprofit industry.

I want to call out the notion of "effectively deliver a 3D presentation in a 3D space". Too many people just use powerpoint in virtual worlds. It wasn't effective for people in the real world and it seems to be less effective in virtual worlds. If we're giving a talk about the future, what's the future of presenting in mixed/virtual realities going to look like? That's a really great question and I applaud you for being interested in it. In a virtual world where we can cause more or less anything we can imagine to come out of our inventories and appear before us, why not do it in presentations more often to make a point? Yes I know, lag and all - but it takes just as long to rez a slide, really. And why not use some of the creative mixed reality expressions that artists are using in business settings? We are living in the future, why not live in it?

Now, on to the nonprofit issue. I think crowdsourcing and transparency is a particular way to engage nonprofits with youth who can potentially become changemakers. I believe that there are a lot of young community organizers, most of whom are operating now outside the world of traditional nonprofits because they feel disenfranchised by the institutionalized structures of traditional nonprofits. While certainly not typical (most are very attentive to the demographics of race and class on social networks), I've literally met some who take grassroots social network use to such an extreme don't understand that they have to organize their protests off facebook, because there's a whole demographic that doesn't use it. These youth need training in some ways, but in some ways we need training to engage with them, and we need to learn to let go, like you said. And by the way, I write this at 27 having experienced the inside of some very corporate nonprofits, and also having been involved in some radical community organizing training - and seeing the beauty and power of social media, as well as old media. I see both sides here.

I think so far as non-profits and social media it's truly a case of the future already being here but being very unevenly distributed. We are already seeing many of the most exciting projects that marry social change and social media being launched by small and relatively-informal teams and collaborations. We are see the rise of organizations who specialize in filling the gap between donors/supporters of an issue or cause and on-the-ground implementation, such as Kiva, Donors Choose and charity:water. And we're seeing increasing transparency in organizations large (Sunlight Foundation) and small (FORGE).

I think all these trends will speed up but never become completely ubiquitous. They will not become the normal next year. But most non-profits will not only sense the demand for greater connectedness and transparency from their stakeholders, they will actively seek out opportunities to share their stories in new ways. People who works at non-profits are really passionate about the work they do. They (/we) want to share. You often hear about how scary social media is for organizations, and there is a hint of that, but mostly there's enthusiasm and excitement. There are so many stories worth sharing.

A trend I think we will see accelerate is the adoption of change models and technology from the majority world to the west. Grameen Foundation has launched in the US and Africa is pioneering the use of simple (not smart) cell phones to help with everything from identifying medicine rip-offs to transferring money to finding out a fair price for your crops. Here's just one example: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/06/science/06uganda.html. The sharing of these examples and ideas will increasingly occur on social networks, in a distributed conversation open to anyone who has something to contribute.

I'm looking really forward to what you come up with here and how you tackle the presentation in a virtual space challenge. I would, of course, love one of the passes so I could see the result live.

Hello,
I'm working with a group of nonprofits to create a Great Lakes Education Collaborative. Turns out there is not an umbrella across the lakes for environmental education. We're having a face to face meeting in 2 weeks. Meanwhile, spread across the 8 Great Lakes states, I'm variously cheerleading, pushing, pulling and just plain posting to a Ning site to start the dialogue. What I think is most fascinating so far - everyone has posted a photo (it's an invitation only site) but very few have posted a photo/comment/blog entry! What does that say about people's comfort level?

I had the experience of starting a job in May 1996 and on my third day, standing in front of a computer at a booth at the big New England Environmental Expo, teaching the people who came by that if they clicked on the underlined word, they would "jump" somewhere else to learn more about that idea. I had LOTS of traffic to my booth and a great opportunity to spread the message that environmental excellence can be a competitive advantage. Almost no one else had a computer or an internet connection at their booth. The next year, I was still teaching some folks about hyperlinks and there were many more computers at booths. The next year, 1998, everyone had computers with internet connections and my traffic was down considerably. Time to find a new way to get out the message...In fact, the organization that I worked for, Northeast Business Environmental Network, had a website in 1995 but had closed its doors by 2005, as its message and networking function became more standard operating procedures. So yes, technology boot camp for leaders is a great idea, along with helping them understand that not all projects need to last forever, but will morph and evolve over time.

I would love a pass to the conference. I plan to continue work in this space for a long time - the possibilities are so intriguing.
Thank you,
Jennifer

I love when I can come away from a blog post and feel inspired. Thank you for the great ideas and helpful information. You have motivated me to investigate SecondLife public speaking possibilities! How weird/fun/neat!

Applause to you for tackling this whole future visionary thing--I find it fairly daunting to think about, given all of the variables in terms of where the nonprofit sector will be (will it even be called that? I kind of doubt it.), what technology will look like, and how changes in economic and political organization in the real world will impact the sector.

I hope that you'll post some of your thoughts on the process of doing this 3D virtual presentation. As more of higher education is going virtual, I think we academics have a real challenge in learning how to make that content maximally engaging--social media seems to offer considerable help for the communication/engagement parts of the professor/student relationship, but we've got to find ways to excite students around content, too, and I'd love some ideas and lessons learned there.

For brave non-profits, the type of immersive environment offered in Second Life could lead to more transparent organizations that could be more responsive to clients/customers, donors and other constituent groups. Looking at the ACORN debacle, it's hard not to think being transparent is incredibly beneficial.

There is a good argument you can make that Facebook, Twitter, and other web-based networks are really just baby steps towards creating as rich an experience as Second Life does. (Though you can also argue that Second Life is trying to wrestle down its anarchist past and become much more bland and corporate).

The distinction is that Facebook and Twitter offer such a low bar for entry and the content creation process in SL is significantly opaque.

Certainly by 2020, we should see audiences taking the virtual sensory experience provided in SL for granted, which may drag non-profits (however reluctantly) down that road in the same way so many are backing into FB & Twitter now.

I have to ashamedly admit that I've just discovered your blog through registering for your upcoming NTEN presentation. This post, in particular, strikes many chords with me. I'm fascinated that anyone actually thinks about predicting the landscape 20 years from now, as the pace and diversity of innovation have become such that I am hesitant to make predictions even 5 years in the future. Then I recall the amount of time it has taken the member audience of the non-profits we work with to truly embrace each new revolution. Upon my first real foray into social networking, I couldn't help but see that social media was the future for our non-profit associations. Most of the leadership agree, but many because of the me-too mentality of "shiny object syndrome" - assuming that simply taking the first steps will ensure success. Few recognize the amount of planning, strategy, and ongoing effort required to drive a social organization. This is further hampered by a member base whose average age is 55+ and still aren't completely comfortable with the Internet, let alone the openness of a social platform. Even I remain unconvinced of the value of the true virtual world experience (ala SecondLife), at least at the current cost-to-benefit ratio. I look forward to reading more of your insights, as well as to a future where the boundaries to social technologies (whether real or perceived) are virtually non-existent.

You’ve inspired more than a comment ful - a whole post about it coming shortly...
Creating the future (BHAG)
Dealing with Fear (How our brain functions)
Getting lost in the waves (who controls the ocean?)
Personal referrals (Rheichold lives!)
We start where we end (a circle has no beginning)